The Pirate Bay will be losing its iconic web address

For as long as I can remember, thepiratebay.se has been the place to go for illegal torrents. But a ruling handed down by Sweden’s court of appeal says that those domain names are going to be handed over to the Swedish government, and you can bet that they’re not fans of illicit Game of Thrones.

The ruling from Sweden’s Court of Appeals upholds a ruling from the Stockholm District Court from last year. The case was actually against Punkt SE (IIS), Sweden’s domain-name authority, which has ultimate control over all .se addresses. The prosecution charged that because thepiratebay.se and piratebay.se were being used for illegal content, the domains should be suspended, and IIS held responsible for damages.

With both the original ruling and the appeal going in the prosecution’s favor, things look bleak for The Pirate Bay. This won’t be the end of the site by any means — taking control of a domain name just means that the site will have to move to a different web address, in a different jurisdiction. Going after pirate sites in this way is a game of whack-a-mole that has proved ineffective in the past.

But as a symbolic victory, this is huge. Thepiratebay.se is the best-known web address for illegal content, and handing over control to the Swedish government sends a very clear, and very unfriendly message to pirates.

There is a tiny glimmer of hope left, however. The court case assumed that the Pirate Bay domains were held by Fredrik Neij, one of the founders of The Pirate Bay. He told TorrentFreak that he’s planning on appealing the case to the Supreme Court, “on the grounds that I do not own the domain and that I did not commit copyright infringement as I am not involved with the site anymore.”

Given that the domains are registered in his name, that will require a little bit of legal gymnastics. But after years of endless litigation involving the Pirate Bay, I’m willing to believe just about anything.